SYMBOLIC SATURDAY - WE ADORE YOU O CHRIST AND WE PRAISE YOU

A person’s wedding day may be the most wonderful day of that person’s life. But as wonderful as it is you can’t stay there. One must get on with the living of the sacrament. If by magic a wish were granted to stay forever in the wedding day that would thwart the very meaning of the day.

Likewise at mass the priest says, “This is My Body which will be given up for you.” Then the priest holds aloft the sacred species that has become the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus for a moment of adoration by all who are present. It might be thought that it is a shame we do not pause here at this august moment to adore Christ who is now present in this most privileged way on our altar. But we have other things to do. We must move on to the offering to the Father that we might be reconciled with Him. That is the point of the mass! That is why we are there! To stop there would be to lose the meaning of why He is there in the first place.

But that does not mean that in another situation we are not afforded the opportunity to worship Christ in this way. We have Eucharistic devotions, (exposition, benediction) in which Christ is presented in a way that we might have more time to adore Him. The vessel for such an event is called a monstrance. The word is from the Latin “to show”. In effect the monstrance holds Jesus aloft, freezing that moment in the mass when the priest holds Him up for that moment of adoration.

The piece that actually holds the Blessed Sacrament at the center of the monstrance is called the luna. You can probably guess why just by looking at it. Together with the monstrance they afford the opportunity to do at length what we are by necessity only given moments to do at the mass.